Companies struggle with managing risks as an ongoing part of their businesses – sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

For individual who are risk averse, a warning that trying to avoid the implications of doing something new, different or even radical can sometimes be more damaging than taking chances.

Afraid to look for a new job?

Many people bury themselves in the rigors of their current job saying they have little time to look for a new challenge.   But then when their employer lays people off, they pay the full price just by trying to stay under the radar.

Afraid to end a relationship that is hurtful or unproductive? All the energy that goes into maintaining a status quo that isn’t working often is more damaging than taking a breather and starting over again (whatever that may bring).

Fear you’ll lose the love of your children if you get too aggressive in setting up and maintaining healthy boundaries? It is the opposite. Young people welcome boundaries as long as they have room to navigate and test themselves within them.

Ironically, most of the things we value in life from entertainment, music and relationships are the direct effect of people taking prudent risks so that they can grow.

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Women are often asked if it is possible to have it all?  I guess men get that question but I have heard it more from women.

It is asked of them because even in a day of growing equality, they often work harder for less than men and continue to take on more domestic responsibilities – although that gap is changing a bit.

Many are worn out even if they are proud that they could balance everything on their shoulders.

But what does having it all mean?

A better question is:  what do you really want?

What makes life the most rewarding for you?

We all have a tendency to multitask our way through life but a better approach may be to prioritize.

What comes first?

Then what’s next?

Is there time for anything else and if so what would that be?

Having it all is only meaningful if you’re having what you really want first.

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• No cancer, heart disease or any other life threatening illness, I’ll bet we’d take that.
• Don’t have a job that you hate.  Gratitude for working in an area that invigorates you.
• No longer have your parents?  You can replay memorable moments and live them all over again.
• Didn’t get what you really, really wanted?  Wait a little while because once the disappointment wears off something impossible to have foreseen may have swept down and landed in your path.

When Jimmy Carter announced to the world that he had cancer, he spent the news conference talking about the gratitude for living a full life with his wife beyond their expectations.

Although he was about to enter an experimental treatment program, he said he was content with the life that he lived.

Then what happened?

Carter’s experimental drug regime sent his brain cancer into remission at his ripe old age of 90 years.

Sometimes by focusing on what we have – not what we don’t have or have lost – miraculously brings us another gift.

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One of the most discouraging things that ever happened to me in radio was delivering an outstanding ratings book and then losing my job.

How could that be?

If life were rational, it would be easy to explain.

The audience was too young – a lot of listeners the station apparently did not want so they were prepared to go in a more adult direction.

That didn’t work out for the station which eventually had to be sold.

But for me, it was a critical career point.  Do I keep doing what I am doing and have to live by unfair metrics or do I do something else.

After a very long time on the beach, fate and a changing attitude made me realize that I was born to be an entrepreneur.  A risk taker.  I wanted to be my own boss.

I cannot image what my life would have been like if I just simply replaced the job I lost with another one like the other one.

Perhaps you’ve been in a situation similar to this?

Discouragement can lead to despair and despair to the inability to make a decision.

Or discouragement can be the precursor to encouragement.

Why am I discouraged?  Is it the work?  Or do I not want to be working in that industry?

Whether discouragement creeps into our career, marriage or family life, it can be a harbinger of good things to come when we see it for the gift that it often is.

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This is less complicated than it sounds and you’re hearing this from a guy who made his living in the communications business.

Talking is not listening.

Listening is the act of being 100% present with what another person is saying.

Not thinking about your next response.

Not necessarily sharing your parallel experience because most people want to be heard.

As a professor I learned quickly that no matter how expert I thought I was on the subject matter, it was easier to get students engaged by listening to them.

My best friend was such a good listener that when he was interrupted – say, by a waiter or waitress looking to top off our coffees – I would forget where I left off, but he never did.

And he proudly, said “When you speak, I listen”.

The art of active listening in real time begins not when we shut our mouths but when we open our minds to what is being shared.

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Relationships are everything in life.

Money and power cannot compare to meaningful, warm relationships between people.

They are also the most difficult thing we have to deal with in life.

• We are not communicating heart to heart and feeling-to-feeling because we are more distracted than ever.

• People are not sharing their lives on an emotional level.

• Distorted ideas about each other can be dealt with through attempting to understand what the other person is saying.

We live in an era that has more ways to communicate than ever and yet we arguably have less personal communication.

Here it is in a sentence:

When you can accurately repeat back what the other person is feeling – whether you agree with it or not – you have arrived at the threshold of healing wounded relationships.

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Inexplicably, civilization seems hell bent to ruin the lives of others by bullying them on social media.

Fat shaming by any name is hurtful and mean and it is possibly en masse because of social media.

Quick.

Think of how you were bullied in elementary, middle or high school and now imagine how it would feel if more than you and a small group of onlookers could hear the insults.

That is what all types of people – young children, teens and even adults are subjected to.

And a big area for trolls is insulting body types – especially for women.

And women are fighting back with full, natural photos of larger body types.

Anyone who has ever been subjected to this type of insult knows how deep it can cut.

• People should be judged not by how big they are, but by how big their heart is.

• Everyone is beautiful in their own way – over popular culture “in” looks have ranged from full-figures to Twiggy.

• It is not enough to simply avoid hurting others but by actively defending and pursuing in a safe manner those who are so cowardly as to publicly humiliate another while hiding behind social media.

The best way to deal with a bully is to fight back.

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On the way up to New York last week on New Jersey Transit I made fast friends with a nice lady, a psychologist, who was on her way to Sloan Kettering for her granddaughter’s surgery that day.

Six-year old Sophi was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor that was discovered quite by accident – she got a bug bite near her eye and doctors started their investigation that led to a fortunately early diagnosis from there.

Sophi has a legion of followers on Facebook’s Sophi Strong and, although her tumor has been reduced, she has a lifetime of medical surveillance ahead of her.

When bad things happen to little people who have barely begun living, it reminds us of our humanity.

What are WE complaining about?

How can we make life more meaningful for whatever number of years we have ahead?

We also come to terms with this.

There is no guarantee of anything – in terms of time or in happiness.

In their own simple way, children who face adversity show the rest of us how to live.

100% in the now.

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That’s humility – something we see a lot less of in our world of social engagement and self-absorption.

Recently I read an article in The New York Times in which the writer conveyed a story about her daughter who didn’t want to play the part of the pig that got eaten in a school play.

Even though she agreed to accept the ground rules before the parts were assigned.

When children are allowed to opt out of situations because they don’t like them, they risk not growing as humans.

When we get our way enough we sometimes realize that not getting our way can be life changing.

That’s where humility comes in.

In generations past, humility showed up in sports.

Teachers were humble but some college professors are too arrogant to learn from their students which, after all, is the goal because “the teacher and the taught together do the teaching”.

Humility is a modest view of our own self-importance.

It is the quality that endears us to others and makes us a better person.

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Some of the worst lifetime decisions I have made have been the ones where I am so emotionally involved that I cannot think straight.

And that’s a great way to put the problem – the inability to think straight.

Most of us have what it takes to make better decisions if we could only separate our hearts from our minds.

This is the advice that helps me.

Think with your head.  Feel with your heart.

There is a place for feeling in every important decision we make but doing what is best for us is often a matter of the head.

• You may be emotionally entangled with someone you love, but do they make a good life partner?  That decision is best made in the mind not the heart.

• You may love your children so much that you can feel how much you want them to succeed and will do everything you can to will it so.  But the mind tells us that making mistakes and learning from them is the real gift and we arrive at that through our mindful consideration.

What’s encouraging is to know that if we differentiate between feeling and thinking, we probably already have the ability to make better decisions for us and those who depend on us.

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In the wake of the Orlando shootings this past weekend in which over 50 people were killed and 53 injured in what is being called an act of terrorism, the political debate may be useful but it is not necessarily soothing.

Fred Rogers, Mister Rogers on PBS for generations of children said something I believe is so memorable and helpful not only for children but for those of us adults shaking our heads again at how hurtful this world can be.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”

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Stress is so rampant now that it is killing us.

Most stress is generated by things that we cannot control.

We’ve written about many different ways to look at these out of control outcomes that we fear but there is one giant move that can put stress in its place even before we get out of bed and begin what we anticipate will be a stressful day.

The author Dr. Amit Sood, interviewed on The Larry Meiller Show on Wisconsin Public Radio put it so eloquently, I’ll let Dr. Sood tell you in his own words:

“So let’s sit with eyes closed, and I’ll share with you how I try to wake up every morning.

Imagine you’re waking up this morning and you become aware of yourself and the world around you.

Now think about the first person in your life that you want to be grateful for, and bring that person’s face in front of your eyes. And then send your silent gratitude to that person.

Choose your second person, and go back to the first memory of when you saw this person. And then send your silent gratitude.

Think about someone who has passed away, whom you loved. Give that person a virtual hug, and then send your silent gratitude. 

Go back in time and look at yourself when you were eight years old. And then send silent gratitude to your eight-year old self.

And then you can open your eyes.”

We spend too much time stressing about the things we can never control instead of investing emotional gratitude in ourselves.

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Don’t bother.

It cannot be done.

All it can do is make the person who wants to change another about as miserable as they can be.

Do this for a week, you’ll be miserable for a week.

Try to change someone for a lifetime – be miserable for that long.

There is something in the human condition – if we really want to be honest about it – that makes us want to change people to a way that we find more acceptable.

Don’t do it.

They won’t change and you won’t succeed.

A better use of time is to change the one person who can improve, adapt and modify behavior and that is – you.

It’s a proven fact that changing others is a dead end pursuit.

But changing the way you deal with people who bother you for one reason or the other is emancipating.

If someone is so self-centered you cannot stand it, you’re not going to change them.  But if you say, every time that person grates on my nerves, I’m going to remind myself not to be that way.

If someone is always late, you change the time you want to meet earlier if at all possible.  If not, get there before them and pat yourself on the back for being prompt.

If someone is not considerate of your feelings, do you really think you’re going to fix that?  Ah, but giving them less access to your feelings is a much more efficient way of not winding up hurt.

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This does it.

I read in The New York Times recently that large corporations such as Intel, Go-Pro, SeaWorld, PayPal and others no longer conduct annual shareholder meetings.

Tell that to Warren Buffett who makes an actual happening out of his shareholder meetings.

Ostensibly shareholder meetings are to allow anyone who owns even one share of their stock to stand up and hold the company’s officers to accountability.

You guessed it, these companies say it is about saving money not cutting interaction but whether you believe that or not it points to the world we are becoming where virtual is replacing reality.

A confession here:  I love (not just like) my smartphone and every digital device Apple makes including the watch.  But I know it’s not about either or.  It’s about balance.

We’re bent over with increasingly poor posture staring at screens.

We’re not interacting, we’re avoiding and it is not a good example for children and teens let alone encourage friendships or civility.

I’m concerned and I’m going to do something about it.  May I share some initial ideas and solicit yours.

• No phones with food.

• No phones in the presence of others (exception are emergencies but not because you feel more comfortable looking down and not up).

• No texting and driving even if you’re good at it – do something else.  Think. Dream.  Laugh.  Talk.

• For every minute on a digital device, vow to have an equal number of minutes being 100% present in the company of others — not just being there.

Psychologists and scientists tell us that our digital devices are an addiction.

If we use them as tools and try to aim for balance, our lives and relationships can be enhanced.

If not, the tools we love could become weapons.

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Father’s Day is coming up and like other family-centric holidays, they have a happy side and a sad side.

If your loved one is no longer here, it’s always a tough day.

If our relationships with family members are challenged, dysfunctional or non-existent, it can be a painful time.

Only if life blessed you with the ideal person you want to remember can this day realize its full potential.

Or is it?

Here’s how I try to remember those who matter to me that are no longer on this earth:

• By actually doing something they did – cook a favorite recipe, go to a favorite place of theirs and give gratitude for having had such a person in your life.

• By adopting the quality you loved about them the most.  My father was a straight shooter, as honest a man as I ever met – there’s lots to put into action there if I want to keep his spirit alive in me.

• Make those we’ve lost as authentic as they really were – no reason to hold them up to a standard that is unrealistic when just plain real is more than good enough.  For example, my dad when he knew he was going to die had an odd response when I asked him where all is wine was?  He was an old Italian man with a wine cellar.  His response: ”I want to drink all my wine and not leave it here”.  I laugh hilariously now when I think of that.

We don’t have to be perfect.

We don’t have to make others perfect.

Real is good enough and we have a chance to do that on Sunday June 19^th.

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Muhammad Ali was an inspiring and, at times in his life, a polarizing larger than life figure.

He was so much more than a boxer — and I say that with due respect to his awesome skills in that arena.

Here is one of my favorite quotes from a man who knew how to turn a phrase:

“Impossible is just a word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”

The most re-quoted part of this saying are these three words: “Impossible is nothing”.

But the part that I like is “Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary”.

What if we believed this to our core and managed people with these empowering words in mind?

What if we raised our children to be less self-absorbed and more certain that impossible is just a place on the road to possible when they chase their dreams.

What if …

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My friend is a psychologist who flatly states that relationships are everything.

My students at USC used to be focused on beginning their careers and making money to get started (and pay student loans).   That is understandably.

But sometimes we get stuck in the money making part despite Gallup polls that show the average American is happiest when a couple’s household income is $70,000 (less in Mississippi, a lot more in Hawaii – but $70,000 is the sweet spot).

That means, according to the research, that for those of us who kill ourselves trying to make $30,000 more, we may be more comfortable, but by our own admission (at least in polling) we are no happier.

In fact, the more we make, the less happy we get.

The pure gold is relationships.

And this doesn’t mean we have to break records to add friends (example:  Facebook or Instagram).

It means investing in solid, healthy, caring relationships is why we are on this earth.

For each relationship worth having, what are we willing to put into them?

What is our emotional investment?

How much time are we willing to invest?

There is nothing worse than doing something well that doesn’t need to be done at all which means – being a great earner only goes so far without relationships that make it all worthwhile.

I’m not going to finish my day today consciously trying to make less money, but even writing about the importance of relationships suggests when it comes to happiness, there is a greater return from investing time in relationships than assembling a larger bank account.

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We often think of being a better person by concentrating on how we can improve.

All of us can always benefit from being better but that doesn’t necessarily make us more likeable to others.

I have a challenge for you this morning.

Try this sincerely and honestly and you may have discovered the “gene” you’ve long been looking for.

Ready?

People like those who are interested in them.

Someone who listens to them.

Who puts distractions aside and makes every attempt to be with others in the present.

To become more likeable, leave the self-improvement to you – that’s a life’s journey for everyone.

Focus on someone – anyone – other than yourself.

Some examples …

• Break the ice, start a conversation with someone you don’t know or are familiar with but generally have no time for.  Listen in the present.  Don’t feel obligated to match everything they say to you.

• Take your child for a walk alone – put your phone down on the table and ask them to do the same thing.  Then start walking.  Your mission:  don’t come home until you learn three things from them you didn’t know.

• Ask your spouse or partner to tell you about their day without the need to share yours (even if they ask).

Ironically two ears are the most potent way to become more likeable instantly.

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In my book Out of Bad Comes Good – The Advantages of Disadvantages I condemn jealousy as one of the worst traits we or those around us can have.

In fact, I call for a Jealousy Diet.

• Let go of the fear that you don’t have value.  Put all your energy into building your personal and emotional security.  When others focus their jealousy on you, remember the pain and reach out to them.

• Repeat this often:  “jealousy hurts me more than it hurts them”.  William Penn said “the jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves”.

• Count jealousy like calories.  Make a list of people of whom you have jealous tendencies.

• Focus on your accomplishments.

Harold Coffin nailed it:  “Envy is the art of counting the other fellow’s blessing instead of your own”.

A quick guide to putting jealousy in its place starting today:

Build your own security to defend against someone else’s jealousy.

And focus on all you are, not what you are not or that someone else may represent to you.

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Why is it that some of life’s biggest letdowns seem to immediately follow its highs?

One of my college professor’s would be gratified to know that I actually learned something from his class on semantics.

Keep your motivations high and expectations low to avoid letdowns.

Just last week I let my expectations get the better of me again so it is probably a human condition to misplace hope for expectations.

Hope is unbridled optimism that often trips us up.

So, to avoid the lows, we also have to avoid the highs.

Feel the joy for sure but don’t let hopes and expectations run away with reality.

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